How you keep 'em down on the farm - Eight farms on tour for Farm Day festivities

By Diane Urbani de la Paz, Peninsula Daily News


Much was missing from Saturday's farm-day festivities.

No YouTube, no Nintendo, no pasteurization, no worries.

The 11th annual Clallam County Farm Tour was replete with pure pleasures: hay wagon rides through wide-open fields, caramel apples, clear-eyed Jersey calves that love a good forehead massage.

Bailey King, 7, of Sequim discovered the latter at the Dungeness Valley Creamery, one of eight farms on Saturday's tour.

He spent a moment with Abbie, one of the young Jerseys born on this farm, one of the last two dairies in Clallam County.

Bailey also went with his family to Nash's Organic Produce, where he said the hayride was a highlight of his day.

Christy Brown of Port Angeles also stopped by the creamery for some of its specialty: raw, unpasteurized milk for her two children, ages 3 and 10.

"I've read about it, and I understand it's much more nutritious" than conventional milk, said Brown, who's no relation to Jeff, Debbie, Kayla and Sarah Brown who own the Dungeness Valley Creamery.

She does play tennis with Jeff, though, and has been meaning to come get some milk.

"I don't think my kids realize where all this comes from," she added, looking at the Mount Townsend Creamery camembert cheese she also picked up.

On Saturday, kids from across the county found out where good food comes from.

Just a few miles from downtown Sequim, Nash's, Graysmarsh Farm and the Bekkevar Family Farm raise berries, beef, carrots, pigs and dozens of other crops, many of them organically.

At The Cutting Garden, on Dahlia Llama Lane, lavender, dahlias and honeybees cover some 24 acres.

Hereford cattle - including the miniature variety - greet visitors to the Straitside Ranch just east of Port Angeles.

And at the Lazy J Tree Farm, a barn full of freshly harvested apples, honey, pears and other produce stands alongside the grove of Christmas trees.

Though Saturday morning dawned cloudy, the sun came out for the afternoon, dispelling Graysmarsh manager Arturo Flores' worries.

Surveying the visitors sampling the fruit of his labor, Flores simply said: "It's a good day."

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Sequim Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.